Trying to balance my mana and rotation

[AegisRose]

Hello Forum,
I'm a holy priest, and I'm trying to "retrain" my brain to heal with all the changes.
Yes, I know priests (healers in general?) are currently having mana issues... but I think mine are mostly self-inflicted. I have been unable to find a thread / post anywhere, that talks about the more casual / situational mob pulls.

Here's what I think I might be doing (not doing).... This is an example from Lost City pulls last night.
Right before pull
PoM the Tank
Renew Tank
hit Chakra

Mage Sheep Pulls, now 3 cat-people coming at us

As Tank Rushes in
Cast Heal on Tank

During Mob encounter
Cast Renew on melee / DPS if taking damage
Cast Heal on Tank
Freak out b/c tank is under 40% and cast Guardian Spirit
Cast Greater Heal
**** by now, the renews are wearing off and I feel like I've wasted the first 10-12 secs of Chakra.
CoH for a little top off to all
Recast renews if needed
Cast Heal tank
Cast PoH because everyone is taking damage... this does NOT help my renew
Freak out b/c tank is getting dangerously low and hit Flash Heal once or twice
Cast Heal tank

etc etc....

Of course, by the end of the pull, I'm mana exhausted, but I feel like my Renews are dropping off and I'm not taking advantage of the Chakra properly somehow. Is a better option, for pulls like that, to use the PoH chakra? I'm having trouble discerning what's more valuable? The HoT ticks or the AoE healing. Feels like PoH is a hog, but I can't seem to keep up the Renew on both the tank and the party members. :\ Am I just failing at properly casting Heal to keep up Renew? I don't use Grid or Healbot... perhaps I should?

Anyhow, I'm sad at healing atm, and more than a little frustrated. I've changed specs to the TankSpot's suggested mana efficiency spec, and glyphed accordingly. I carry mana pots, and abuse my poor shadowfiend. I still think that it's me doing something wrong... I just can't wrap my head around going completely OOM almost every pull. I must be doing something wrong still...

[Deleted]

Oew...this is interesting, im a lvling holy priest alt, (WOTLK difficulty atm), and i wanna prepare good for cata dungeon's...pls forum help this holy priest, and with that, me asswell

(maybe a tip...go drainei priest...gift of the naruu helps, only a lil bit, but it helps)

[Starcrossedd]

In cata heroics all healing is pretty much circumstantial. If you're using chakra heal then your heal will refresh the renew on the target if you're that worried about your renew falling off. If you're using chakra: serenity then holy word: serenity is an awesome spell. If you're casting renew on the whole party that'll really destroy your mana, as well as spamming poh. Remember you don't have to keep everybody in the party topped off at all times, especially the dps. Unless I can spare the time or the mana I don't normally heal the dps unless they're 30%-40%. If they're standing in fire or doing something wrong they forget healing them, it's not worth the mana. But your stats and spec will really help people give you more input.

[Deleted]

As Starcrossedd already stated the mistake you're probably doing is worrying about topping off everyone very fast. I did it myself at the start and it doesn't work well, you just drain your mana for no reason. Keep your focus on the tank, keep him topped off with renew rolling full time, Holy word:Serenity on cd and spam Heal him. If his health keep droping w8 until he reaches 50% or less and go for a flash heal plus greater heal. Yes it's a lot of mana but it's very strong and you'll relax about your tank for a while. As for the rest don't get stressed, in most trash pulls noone should take that much damage unless they are doing something wrong. Some trash are hard yes, but Lost City is not one of the places with them. Cast a heal or throw a renew on the dps if they get dangerously low but don't panic. Maybe a PoH if you have some free time and you're good to go.

Remember that the group's skill level is very important for a healer. If they stand in fire or don't have enough dps and such it's not your fault that you run oom.

[Newspaper]

Ok i wouldn't call it "basics" really because there's a huge leap in mana cost from 83-->85(design flaw?). You need to take a look at those instants you're using so much. Renew is a VERY inefficient spell to use on anyone except the tank and that's because it should never need to be recasted on the tank. Also PoM is kind of pricey and it does not break even in cost/gain unless it gets 4+ ticks off in one cast (short version : No group wide dmg in bursts = PoM is not really efficient and should be avoided if having mana issues).

The only useful Chakra state for 5mans is Heal. That is because Holy word: Serenity is an AMAZING spell. It's almost free and it heals for a nice amount too (and the buff is beastly). Chakra:PoH i only use for aoe fights and that's because of the "passive" 15% aoe healing boost (Not for the 10k mana 600 heal per 2 sec crap).

Now that's out of the way let's talk rotation. The cd is short enough for you to have Chakra casted before every pull (even if you're not out of the current state yet). Your main goal here is to pretty much always be in Chakra:Heal and hell if there's not much downtime between pulls you can also keep renew rolling on the tank with a Heal cast (which is way cheaper than recasting renew). Now your way of healing is quite simple. You spam Heal and hit Holy Word:Serenity on every cd. Yes you are reading correctly. There is not as much burst dmg as in wotlk and even if the tank is not 100% as long as he;s "stable" (ie healthbar not having HUGE differences) then you're fine. The only one you should be paying attention to in a trash pull is the tank. It doesn't matter if the dps are at half hp as long as there's not HUGE unavoidable dmg coming. Granted on your first dungeons/heroics you might need to squeeze a Greater Heal every now and then between the Heal and Holy Word:Serenity but as you get closer to having full 333 gear you'll see you can keep a (good) tank topped off only by using heal and having renew constantly up. That translates to always being above 95% mana.


All the above assuming your tank realises he has to rotate cds on difficult pulls and has the appropriate gear level for the dungeon. If you're doing everything in your power to keep him alive and his hp is still falling like a rock then rest assured it's not your fault.

I've had my morale absolutely broken when i could not heal through the first trash packs in DM heroic (which was also my first hc :<) then the tank ragequitted and we got a very nice fellow from lfd. The rest of the run went on smooth as butter. No wipes , no oh shi- moments with trash or anything....

[Skyve]

One very important thing to note is (imo) that you should use Binding Heal over Flash Heal in pretty much any situation, sind Binding Heal heals for roughly twice the amount of Flashheal (if you count both targets), and costs almost as much (~200 mana or so more).

I do most of my crosshealing with Holy Word: Serenity (because it's instant, and I dislike spending more than 1.5 seconds on non-tanks). Also note that you can easily keep up 3 renews consistently with chaincasting heal on different targets. You obviously only do that if they have <80% hp, so you don't overheal them (you only really need that when DDs are at about 60% HP, since 1 renew alone won't heal them up).

Always cast Prayer of Healing if at least 3 targets benefit from the heal. Prayer of Healing on 3 targets costs as much as 3 Heals and heals for as much as 3 Heals, but only takes 1/3 of the time. A Glyphed PoH outperforms Heal in HpM for 3+ targets easily.

Always use Holy Word: Serenity every CD possible, unless everyone is >80% hp. It is your most efficient single target heal, healing for roughly 10k for 1.4k mana (Heal does ~8k healing for 1.8k mana) and gives you a very beneficial buff on the target, that increases all your healing on it by an average of 12.5%.

Use Holy Word: Serenity followed by 2 Flash Heals and a Greater Heal. Ideally, one of the Flash Heals comes from a SoL procc, and the other one should be Binding Heal. This also stacks up your mastery nicely, making it likely for you to get a couple of 800+ heals from it (which brings it to a level very, very close to Renew, potentially even healing for more than Renew does in a 3 second interval.

Always keep up renew on the tank. Never recast renew. Casting Heal (1.8k mana) is more efficient than casting Renew (~3k mana I think).

Note that Greater Heal heals and costs 3x the amount Heal does. Yes, Greater Heal is just as efficient as Heal. (Unless I misread that). I personally never use Greater Heal as my main heal. Simply chaincast heal until your tank drops to ~25%, then 1x Flash Heal +1x Greater Heal should bring him up enough to make more "breathing room", during which time your DDs should be able to kill at least 1 mob, making any future healing for the current mob group easier.

Another important thing: If you are really having a lot of trouble healing, place a Lightwell.

[Posh]

There are very little circumstances that legitimate the use of chakra poh in 5 men. An example could be the dark phoenix phase on 3rd boss of lost city of tolvir and maybe 1st boss of stonecore when the worm goes down. In these case i use pom on cd and even coh (not on cd yet and not entirely sure about coh efficiency but i find it useful, i may be wrong) but in these case i switch from inner fire to inner will.

In general yet serenity is much better, i agree with pretty much everything that has been said. If dps need heals and tank is full i may be using poh or even heal (depending how many dps need the heals). But remind the aim of a healer is no more topping everyone but not let them die so if they are 60% health i wouldnt bother healing them unless tank is full or so. Priority is the key word.

[zenkai]

As people have said all healing is situational so it really depends on your tank and group make up and your gear.
Try this instead
Right Before the pull
Don't POM the tank (its shouldn't be bouncing on a TOV pull..)
Cast Chakara
Mage Sheep Pulls, now 3 cat-people coming at
Cast renew on the tank
Cast heal
During Mob encounter
DPS taking some dmg and tank HP in safe spot?
Cast Renew on the DPS
Tank need heals? Serenity NOW! (Sienfield Joke)
Cast heal as it will have a higher chance crit and you need to refresh renew on tank
DPS Renew about to fall off (and they still need heals) and Tank in good health standing?
Cast heal on DPS refresh renew
Tank HP dipped low? Throw in a GH if no danger of dying (FH if SOL some how proced...)
Cast Heal on tank to refresh renew, keep serenity on CD unless tank is full health
More than 2 DPS plus tank needs heals?
POH (let the glyph and your mastery top them off)
DPS about to die because he is playing stupid?
Let him die, better you have mana to keep the tank alive than to be OOM and let the tank die and therefore everyone else die

Bottom line, on trash pulls there isn't much AE dmg going on, you can usually use heal to keep most people alive, just remember to cleanse

If people have poison and there is no one to cleanse poison then I will use a POM as it will bounce between the tank and the poison victim. IF there is people who can cleanse poison and their not, yell at them for being bad, if they are worried about their trash DPS to make your job harder they don't need to be in a heroic.

[samholypriest]

I am so glad you started this topic. I am facing the same issue when it comes to mana/healing in heroics.

I have been holy priest the entire LK xpac and even most part of BC and beyond (going disc for some raids). But this new xpac has really made me feel sad when it comes to healing groups in heroic dungeons. Its very disappointing and painful. I don't understand the need to make FH so expensive on mana. I don't mind using the whole Heal/Chakra combination to enable Serenity. But with a 2.4x cast time on Heal is not effiecent when the tank is getting hit like a truck. I was in H Stonecore few days back, trash groups are ok. We were on Manastrom (Corobus) and its seriously nuts to heal the tank and the gang with just Heal/Chakra/Renew with constant PoM/CoH.

*You have to bring out the big guns by spamming FH as the tanking losing health like broken dam. Even after I release GS, PoH, SFiend, DHymn...we still didn't make it. Lost the group at 23% left on boss. I don't know if dps was taking all that damage because they were standing at the wrong place at wrong time. The tank had 114k unbuffed, which I felt little low for Stonecore hardmode.

I really believe that Blizzard should reduce the cast time on Heal to 1.5 sec by using a glyph or something. I am going to try respeccing my off spec (shadow) to disc and see if that makes any difference, since I keep hearing from many people that healing heroics in disc is much smoother.

FYI - I didn't have any problems healing BoT (trash) and BH (Argolath) as Holy.

[zenkai]

on Manastrom (Corobus) and its seriously nuts to heal the tank and the gang with just Heal/Chakra/Renew with constant PoM/CoH.

If your DPS fails at killing the crystal shards you're going to have a tough time healing, especially if the tank is in range and taking the debuff. Sounds like a group fail IMO

The best way to be a good healer is to know and understand fight mechanics, it helps you become a proactive rather than reactive healer, plus it helps you determine if the fail of the group is your healing or the group itself.

[AegisRose]

But your stats and spec will really help people give you more input.

Am I able to post that? lets see if I have rights to link...

http : / / us. battle. net/wow/en/character/zuljin/praegis/simple

edit: unable to post links... i broke it up with spaces.

---------- Post added 2011-01-03 at 01:33 PM ----------

As Starcrossedd already stated the mistake you're probably doing is worrying about topping off everyone very fast. I did it myself at the start and it doesn't work well, you just drain your mana for no reason. Keep your focus on the tank, keep him topped off with renew rolling full time, Holy word:Serenity on cd and spam Heal him. ......

Remember that the group's skill level is very important for a healer. If they stand in fire or don't have enough dps and such it's not your fault that you run oom.

OMG~ I didn't realize that I could put in Holy Word: Ser into the rotation like that. Also, I think I was too used to keeping everyone happily over 90% with the WotLK attitude. I just tried HoO and was able to keep a better footing. I also setup my x-perl to show the buffs *I* cast on ppl much bigger. Those timers really help!!
Oh~ and the DPS'ers need to just learn where to stand for sure! LOL (stay out of cleave people!!)

---------- Post added 2011-01-03 at 01:34 PM ----------

The only useful Chakra state for 5mans is Heal. That is because Holy word: Serenity is an AMAZING spell. It's almost free and it heals for a nice amount too (and the buff is beastly). Chakra:PoH i only use for aoe fights and that's because of the "passive" 15% aoe healing boost (Not for the 10k mana 600 heal per 2 sec crap).

As I stated above, I didn't realize the whole HW:Ser worked like that. It WAS amazing just now.

---------- Post added 2011-01-03 at 01:36 PM ----------

Another important thing: If you are really having a lot of trouble healing, place a Lightwell.

Until more ppl are used to Failwells (aptly renamed not-so-fail-anymore-wells recently), I spent the point in the Spirit of Redemp

[zenkai]

Am I able to post that? lets see if I have rights to link...

http : / / us. battle. net/wow/en/character/zuljin/praegis/simple

Reforge for more spirit, your regen is low because of gear but part of it is because of your gems and not reforging, its a cheap fix that will reap great results.
If you're going to cheap out on gems at least use cataclysm cheap gems
If you plan on raiding drop skinning

[samholypriest]

Zenkai please inspect my gear and suggest recommendations.
Samskara on Windrunner.
How much hp you suggest a tank should have for heroics?

[AegisRose]

Reforge for more spirit, your regen is low because of gear but part of it is because of your gems and not reforging, its a cheap fix that will reap great results.
If you're going to cheap out on gems at least use cataclysm cheap gems
If you plan on raiding drop skinning

Thanks Zenkai~ i appreciate the input... I'm also not used to the whole reforging ordilly. I'll do that stat! As far as skinning goes, I have alts and mules for my professions, it don't hurt nuthin' on there. Besides, I have a Realm First Skinning, I'm rather proud of

[Kaysha]

Try and get gear with natural Spirit on it. I see a bunch of gear without it, though you reforged to it. It still isn't as high as natural, though. Also, get rid of the +Hit; you don't need it at all (not as Healer, and not as Shadow anymore either).

Also, do try to incorporate Lightwell in your healing routine - especially on boss fights.

Heck, I used to hate Lightwell before, but now I am loving it - and so does my regular group. Recently I even forgot to put it up one time (tired, I think) and when the tank asked if we were ready, one of the DPS'ers said no. When asked why, she replied that there was no Lightwell yet . And since most fights last more than 3 minutes, the Lightwell tends to expire mid-fight. My group usually reminds me of its expiration and pretty much demand a new one, lol. I've even considered Glyph'ing for it.

Lightwell isn't as useful on trash packs, because groups move through the dungeon too fast.

[Deleted]

Heck, I used to hate Lightwell before, but now I am loving it - and so does my regular group.

Can I have your group please?

You are absolutely right about the lightwell on boss fights, it does miracles. My regular group still needs some practice for it, but when I scream on Vent they remember it and quickly use it . The way it is designed now (no diselecting your current target and 20 yards range) make it much easier to use without losing dps, inform your group about it, because I still see players who run almost on it to click it and then run back to keep dpsing, which ofc can be very annoying for them, hence hate it

[samholypriest]

Not sure how you are even getting into heroics when most of your gear is under 85!!!

[zenkai]

Not sure how you are even getting into heroics when most of your gear is under 85!!!

Your item level is determined by the highest items you own not what you have equipped, you could technically have a full set of plate blues sitting in your bank and you are wearing all grays and could technically que for a heroic. The day I dinged 85 I was one pt from getting into a heroic, I saw my ring was low so I bought a cheap 333 melee ring from the AH throw it in my inventory and Queued with my guild. I probably even wearing less item level because I did have a ton of blue stuff in my bank I was saving to DE when I hit 500 enchanting

[Alexio]

hehe, i made a 339 pvp cloth belt to get our hunter into heroics

[samholypriest]

Zenkai please inspect me and offer ur thoughts please.
Appreciate it..